Thursday, September 6, 2012

@ Oregon State

1-0. Those are the ONLY numbers that matter. Don't be fooled into
thinking that 26-21 is of any importance. Would you like to win more
comfortably? Sure, it's easier on the ol' blood pressure. But as long as
you leave every Saturday 1-0, you're accomplishing your goals. So yeah,
I could sit here and overreact to the fact that Monteé Ball looked
pedestrian, our offensive line was outplayed by Northern Iowa's D-Line,
and the defense was back to its old ways of giving up big plays with
blown coverages at inopportune times. Or I could enjoy the fact that
Badger Football is back in our lives and we are currently undefeated.
Yup, I think that's a much better plan. OPTIMISM.

With that said, we got a big one this week. It's been a rarity for
Wisconsin to travel away from the warmth and comfort of Camp Randall in
the non-conference portion of the schedule, but that's exactly what
we're doing this week as we head west to take on the Oregon State
Beavers*. One thing worth remembering: Oregon State's first game was
canceled due to the menacing Jewish Hurricane Isaac, which on its
surface sounds stupid because Oregon State is way the fuck over there
and Isaac was all the way down South. But their first opponent was some
shit school from the South, and apparently Isaac was using all the
plagues to prevent them from traveling to Corvallis. The only thing
worse than a poor performance in week 1 is not even HAVING a week 1.
Advantage: BUCKY.

*I thought beavers were an incredibly stupid animal to make your mascot, but then I started watching AMC's Into the West
miniseries. I absolutely LOVE historical miniseries, so when we saw
they were re-airing it the DVR was immediately fired up. My top takeaway from episode
1? Beaver pelts were like GOLD before people started finding actual
gold. Early on, one of our fair-skinned white boy settler friends
bartered a pot and 30 beaver pelts for a Native American girl. Beaver
pelts and a pot for a HUMAN BEING (although at the time I suppose they
were considered savages, and assuming this show is relatively close to
the truth, I'd have to agree). Clearly he makes her his wife, and they
actually seem really happy and pregnant... until some Apache jackasses
stormed their hovel and stole the baby like they were the Others from
LOST. Moral of the story: Get a receipt when you trade beaver pelts for
humans. Also, Indians were fucking crazy.

CHICAGO BADGERS:
Could Will's have been any more fun last week? I really don't think so.
The only chance of topping it comes this Saturday when Will's is doing
their annual Muskyfest. I think this will be my 3rd Muskyfest and I
still have very little idea what it actually is, but here are the facts
that I've gathered:

There will be live music on the street next to Will's and TV's out there. MINI MIFFLIN STREET DRINKING

Some girl will be crowned Musky Queen 2k12 at the end of the night based on the votes of drunk idiots like us

Buy a drink, get a vote

People will be drinking very heavily as a result of that last fact

I can't think of a single reason to go anywhere else this weekend. Round 2, get it.

LAST CALL FOR REFERRALS:
I promise this is the last time I'll bug you about this. Thank you to
those of you who have sent me fresh blood; hopefully they don't hate you
for having to deal with me from now on.

LET'S go!

WHO/WHERE/WHEN

TV: FXWEATHER: LOW 80'S, SUNNY, I DON'T TRUST THIS REPORT AT ALL

I don't know who to yell at, but somebody should be yelled at for putting us on FX. That's a D-list sports network.

LET'S TALK ABOUT OREGON STATE

Oh
fuck me. Today might be the day. I may have found a school better than
Wisconsin. I'm well-aware that from a scientific perspective, that's not
even possible. Every study ever conducted results in the same
conclusion: Wisconsin is greater than everything else the world has ever
seen. But you know what? If I had a chance to do it all over again, I
would have applied to Oregon State and majored in entomology just to
learn from this badass:

OSU has several notable faculty members, including entomology professor George Poinar, Jr., whose work extracting DNA from insects fossilized in amber was the inspiration for the novel and film Jurassic Park

Are you kidding me?! I took entomology at UW and it was NOTHING like Jurassic Park.
Not once did we even talk about dinosaurs, let alone go over the
science behind the world's greatest movie. All we did was grow
disgusting worms into even more disgusting, hairy moths. Basically, I'm
picturing Entomology 101 at Oregon State to take place in a classroom
like this:

...and taught by a professor that looks like this:

Amazing.
I thought UW was a leading academic and research institution, but it's
abundantly clear that we suck at making dinosaurs and I'm a little
embarrassed to be a Badger right now.

PS - Dinosaur rankings, in order of how awesome I perceive them to be based on a movie I've seen 18,000 times:

1) Velociraptor
- I like to live my life ignoring the fact that they were actually
pretty small in 'real life'. Is there any animal you'd be more terrified
to come across in the wild? Don't be an idiot and say T-Rex because
everyone knows you just stand still like you're facing a bear and the
T-Rex won't bother you.

2) T-Rex - But still, the T-Rex is the king of the jungle.
And don't doubt for a second that they have magical abilities, because
there's no other way to explain how at the end of JP (SPOILER ALERT),
the T-Rex somehow got into the lobby of the building without tearing
down a wall. Most unrealistic part of the entire movie, especially now
that we have confirmation that the science behind it is all REAL.

3) Triceratops - I'm gonna give them the benefit of the
doubt. They were so poorly represented in JP that I feel pretty bad for
them. Seriously, if you knew nothing about dinosaurs and only saw the
movie, you'd think Triceratops were lazy bastards that just took
enormous dumps all day. For some reason I feel like they'd be the
easiest dinosaur to domesticate, and then we could all ride around on
pet triceratops.

4) Pterodactyl - I WAS SO CLOSE TO SPELLING IT RIGHT, I
SWEAR. They were some ugly ass birds, but I think they were the size of
airplanes and much more horrible than those things in Lord of the Rings that the faceless ghouls rode. This is the nerdiest fucking thing I've ever written. Let me counter that by saying I hate The Big Bang Theory.

5) Compies - CURVE BALL. I coulda gone with a Stego or that
dickhead Dilophosaurus here, but I respect the shit out of the Compy's
game. They're adorable little guys that kinda roam around like chickens
do in third-world countries, but if you piss them off, they will eat
your face off like you're a homeless person with a delicious looking
face. Yes, well-aware they weren't in the first one. Don't care; I make
the rules around here.

Like I was saying, it's a fine university with a decent football program. Any questions?

THE BEST DRINKS IN MADISON

11) THREE STORY BEER BONGS ON DAYTON STREET

I
miss beer bongs. They're easily the most forgotten method of booze
swindling once you graduate, which I assume is mainly because who the
hell still has a beer bong? But you know what? This guy right here wants
a beer bong. I'd do one right now. And nothing screams out 'Sconnie'
quite like hordes of people decked out in red trying not to embarrass
themselves while they chug 3 beers being poured by mysterious strangers 3
stories up. Has anyone ever considered the fact that if they wanted to,
they could roofie like half of Madison in one day before anyone even
realized? Holy shit, why would I even think of that, I'll never do an
anonymous three story beer bong ever again. FALSE, I kinda wanna do one
next week before the night game that we're going to and everyone else
should be going to.

Truthfully, I've only done a handful of these in my life. They're
quite daunting, and you're almost for sure gonna chug 9 beers worth of
foam or have it splooge all over you face like an idiot. But it's kind
of a rite of passage... like you've never truly experienced a Wisconsin
Gameday until you've put in a good effort on one of these monstrosities.
I always wonder if it's a clause in the lease of all the houses on
Dayton leading up to the stadium that you have to provide a beer bong of
at least two (2) stories on all home Gamedays. There's really no other
way to explain how they exist every year without fail. Unless people
move into those apartments knowing exactly what they're getting
themselves into. That probably makes more sense.

Previously:

12) Mountain Creek Power Hour

Honorable
Mentions: Birthday Mug at the Nitty Gritty, World's Biggest Mixed
Drinks at Quaker Steak & Lube, Old Fashioned at the Old Fashioned

MATCH-UPS TO WATCH

Oregon State QB Sean Mannion vs. UW Secondary

I know I said before that going 1-0 is really all that matters - and
that's TRUE. But, if you keep blowing assignments late in games, you
will NOT KEEP GOING 1-0. It killed us against MSU last year, it killed
us against OSU last year, and it damn near killed us against Northern
Iowa last week. There is litrally no excuse for this, and it starts with
the coaching. I doubt Bielema will admit it, but I wouldn't be shocked
if he took Ash and Partridge aside and gave them an earful after the
game. The confusing part is we actually have some talent in the back.
It's just the mountain of mental mistakes that has left me with a broken
confidence in our ability to prevent the big play over a full 60
minutes. As we learned last week, doing it for 35 minutes and then
easing off can lead to a potential disaster.

Oregon State had a bit of a QB controversy last year, but Mannion played
the entire game against us, going 25/38 for 244 yards with 0 TD/INT.
How unexciting. With no one in his way this year and a home crowd behind
him, you can be damn sure he'll be surging with confidence. It's gonna
be on the back 4 of UW's defense to be up to the task of knowing their
roles and sticking to them for an ENTIRE 60 minutes. If we have some of
the lapses that we've unfortunately become accustomed to, well this game
might be a whole lot closer than any of us want to see.

UW's Play-Action vs. Oregon State's Entire Defense

If you looked up 'vanilla playcalling' in the dictionary, they would
simply point you to the film from last week's game. It doesn't
necessarily bother me because there's really no reason to give away all
of your playbook in week 1 against a supposedly weak opponent. But the
flip side is that the other team can start expecting a handoff or 3 step
drop every play. Northern Iowa had 18 guys in the box every damn play.
And wouldn't you know it, when Canada decided to open it up a bit and
let Notorious DOB air it out, good things happened. When we beat Oregon
State last year, it was pretty similar: they came out stacking the box,
essentially daring us to beat them in the air. And Black Jesus
responded with 3 touchdowns in a painfully efficient outing. I'd expect
something similar from DOB - I really think Canada will use the pass to
set up the run this time around, which is very anti-Wisconsin, but you
have to adapt. There's no doubt they wanna keep getting MBS his reps and
establish that ground game that we're famous for, but I'm kinda hoping
they'll really lean on the pass in the first half to open up the D, and
then ram it home in the second half with 14 MBS touchdowns.

RANDOM MUSIC I'M DIGGING HARD THIS WEEK

Bush - Machinehead

Fits in the category of songs I used to love, then stopped listening to
for like 10 years, then kinda started enjoying it again. Got it? Good.

The Black Keys - Sister

I know 'Gold On The Ceiling' and 'Lonely Boy' were the 'hits' of this
album, but this song was just as good, if not better, than both of
those. Really a fantastic album all the way through.

Kanye - Good Morning

I feel this.

PS - Is Graduation his most underrated album? You really don't
hear a lot about it, but other than 'Barry Bonds' there really isn't a
bad song on it.

Comedian gets owned by a heckler. His three word response? Definition of a #returnnotice.

It's
no secret that I appreciate a good animated GIF. But the only problem
with GIF's is that they don't have sound. Fortunately, this guy took a
ton of famous GIF's and added appropriate sounds to them.

PS - Easily the best was Gandalf rocking out to this track:

PPS - Damnit, now I'm listening to that song for 10 minutes.

FOOD PORN

Like
I said last week, I took off work and hit up Hot Doug's on Friday. After an
incredible turnout at the polls, the leading vote-getter was the ribeye
steak sausage:

No
controversy in this election - it was DELICIOUS. Paired with a
thuringer (pork/beef/garlic) and duck fat fries... I had to get
horizontal for a good hour or so after eating. Next time I go I'm gonna
try to convince Doug to make me duck fat tots. The world will most
likely collapse upon itself.

Oh shit, I almost forgot. So we're
in line at Hot Doug's, and eventually you make it in the front door,
where you're basically in a little alcove that is yet another set of
doors away from the actual restaurant. Confusing? It's kinda like a
waiting room - you're inside, but you haven't been called to see the
sausage doctor yet. I noticed outside that the guy in front of me had
some wicked back sweat. The kind of back sweat that this clearly
ain't your first rodeo, and you should know to either wear an undershirt
or a different color. Anyway, I made a quiet remark to my friends
outside, but by the time we had moved inside he had a real situation
back there. So as we're standing in the little waiting room, the guy and
his girl are through a set of doors and on the inside. I make some
dumbass comment like 'damn, that back sweat is really outta control
right now, that guy's gotta figure that shit out next time'... and as
I'm saying that, he turns his head and pops an eyebrow up like he's The
Rock. So I guess those doors aren't soundproof, and I just called this
meathead out.

Wanna guess where the only open table was once we finally sat down? I could feel
the enduring stink-eye he was shooting me the entire time we were
eating. Whatever, I was hungover, couldn't feel my limbs, and starving.
If my brain and mouth aren't communicating clearly, that's not my
problem.

PS - Come on, you think I wasn't on top of my iPhone Ninja game?

My point still stands. Clean that shit up. I don't approve of your fedora either.

SKYPORN

The
only good thing about crashing on a couch and not being able to sleep
in is that you might be awake for sunrise. Great cloud cover over Lake
Michigan last month.

LOOK AT THIS FUCKING HIPSTER (#LATFH)

While
I was horizontal post-Hot Doug's, I got an intriguing invite to hit up
Big Star. Those of you who know me know that I fucking LOVE Big Star
more than pretty much any place in Chicago. Even though I was stuffed, I
couldn't resist. And a trip to Big Star means playing one of my
favorite games: LOOK AT THIS FUCKING HIPSTER

This pic doesn't quite do it justice, but he reminded me of a combo of a pirate and a male swimmer from the 1920's.

Look at this fucking hipster.

Finally, I have but one regret in life: that I did not get a better picture of this guy. Pay attention, now:

Notice anything strange about him? I mean, he's really not dressed that hipsterific. LET'S ENHANCE THE RESOLUTION BY 10,000 PIXELS:

HE'S GOT A FUCKING PARROT ON HIS SHOULDER.

Game over. I'm never playing again.

PREDICTION CITY

Ooooo, we're a trendy upset pick
this week! I love those weeks, because you know what? Those predictions
rarely come true. Here are some things to consider going into our
battle with the Beavers:

The team - especially the defense -
is pissed off. They know they played poorly, they know people were
dropping them in the rankings, and they know that they can play better.

We shut this team out a year ago, and I still firmly believe this year's defense is better than last year's.

Hands
down the most conservative playcalling you'll ever see and DOB still
put up numbers. Canada will open it up, and DOB will make it rain.

Our
offensive lines have struggled early in the season before - and still
churned out NFL draft picks. There's plenty of talent and plenty of size
there. Patience.

Add that all up, and I really don't see how
we lose this game. People can doubt this year's squad based on one
lackluster performance all they want, but I'm sticking with my gut. And
my gut tells me this team is B1G Championship caliber. And B1G Champions
don't lose to crappy teams at home, on the road, on Mars or anywhere
else. BB and his boys come out angry and take it out on an outmatched
and overwhelmed opponent. The Pick:
WISCONSIN 41, OREGON STATE 13